


Five Secrets Dean Will Never Share

by Lyl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5 Things, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-19
Updated: 2010-07-19
Packaged: 2017-10-10 16:31:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyl/pseuds/Lyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five moments that Dean will never share with anyone, ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Secrets Dean Will Never Share

One

About a year after Sam left for Stanford and _normal_, when he and his father were going on more hunts alone than together, Dean finally broke down and bought a CD player for the Impala.

He hustled pool and poker for three months to pay for it, because no way was he going to put something in his car that was paid for by a fake credit card. He bought the best system he could find and did the installation himself, because no one was touching his baby but him. Especially not some idiot in a primary coloured shirt that barely made minimum wage.

Dean braved the mall and bought all his music on CD. The girl in the store directed him to some new music made in the last decade that she assured him he would like based on his other choices, and then showed him the back room as her way of saying ‘thanks for buying 50 CDs and making my day’.

Dean left the store with a heavy bag full of jewel cases, a hefty bill for Theodore Thompkins, and the taste of cherry lip gloss in his mouth. The day was officially awesome.

Two years later, Dean walked out of his motel room, still sore from the poltergeist the night before, to find his car violated. The window was broken and the CD player gone, but what really burned Dean was the damage done to the dash.

Once Dean calmed down somewhat, he went about putting his car back together. The window and dash were easy enough to fix, thanks to Bobby and the salvage yard, but the Impala would require serious work if he ever wanted to put another CD player in. Instead, he pulled the original tape deck from the depths of the trunk and popped it back in.

The box of CDs was exchanged for the box of ancient tapes, and he decided that newer was not always better. Nobody wanted to steal a tape deck anymore, so his car was safe in that respect.

Then Sam had joined him back on the road. But every time his brother brought up the tapes or mentioned that he should move into the decade of the CD, Dean felt all the anger return. His mind would helpfully bring forth the image of the Impala with a broken window, greasy handprints all over the paint, and a cracked dashboard with stray wires hanging out. He would usually tell Sam off or make some crack about his little brother’s crap taste in music, anything to divert attention away from the way his hands were clenching on the steering wheel.

~!~

Two

Sam got a 1450 on his SAT’s and partied all night with his geeky friends

Dean got a 1280 and said it was 880.

Sam had looked disappointed.

He’d never seen his dad more relieved.

~!~

Three

His first solo hunt turned out not to be a psychotic ghost, as his father had stated, but rather a shifty incubus that liked anyone with red hair.

Unless they were threatened by someone bursting through the door with a shotgun full of rock salt, a canister of lighter fluid and an ego the size of Texas, in which case the incubus liked Dean. Liked him a lot.

It took him two days to detach himself and find a way to kill the damn thing, and when he met up with his father looking like death, Dean just said, “Two ghosts.”

He couldn’t stand to have anyone touch him for days.

When Sam asks about his first solo hunt, Dean regales him with the story of the haunted teddy bear that was passed from family to family until it was finally buried nearly a century later in Minnesota. That was actually his second solo hunt.

When Sam asks about the odd-shaped mark on Dean’s left pectoral muscle in the shape of a deformed mouth with too many teeth, Dean puts on his trademark leer and says, “Waitress in San Diego – man, she was frisky.”

Sam just learns not to ask.

~!~

Four

The first year Sam had been at Stanford, Dean had passed through the area seven times, always alone. He’d stay a night or two, depending on his hunting schedule or if he needed to meet up with his father, and spent most of his time shadowing his little brother while silently berating him about letting his guard down.

Sam didn’t do much besides go to class and the library, and just like in high school, the giant geek had no social life. This left Dean free in the evenings for some pool, beer and girls, in no particular order.

He’d find a bar far enough away from campus to avoid any potential meetings with Sam – if the loser ever left his room for some fun – yet close enough to still keep an eye on Sam, if something happened. Which it wouldn’t. Because his brother had chosen the most boring part of campus to live.

One thing he could say about college towns, was that the girls were awesome. One memorable night, he’d hooked up with this hot blonde that was flexible and energetic and fucking fantastic in bed. He’d almost regretted leaving the next morning, but his father texted him a set of coordinates during the night, and he was expected to be there yesterday.

It wasn’t until years later when Sam was introducing Dean to his girlfriend Jess, that the memory from that night came slamming back. His last couple of trips to Palo Alto had been few and far between, and he’d never managed to catch a glimpse of Sammy’s girl – though now he wishes he had. This punch to the gut wouldn’t have been so surprising if he’d known. So he played it up like he hadn’t already broken a bed with her, and smart chick that she was, she played along.

~!~

Five

When Dean was twenty, they lived in Jackson, Mississippi for eight months, waiting for Sam to finish school so they could go on their summer hunting trip.

Staying in one place so long, a person was bound to make friends, and Dean was not shy by half. He started seeing a girl named Kelly who had red hair, a love of cars to rival his own, and a hellfire temper to rival his dad’s.

They’d been going out for nearly four months when she told him she might be pregnant.

Nothing in his life had prepared him for the searing spike of fear that went through him at the words, and they spent the next two weeks avoiding each others eyes even while they held hands and tentatively planned for the future.

Two weeks, and Dean was all set to put a ring on her finger and raise the baby right. He’d rehearsed the ‘we should get married’ speech several times, but not nearly as often as the ‘my family hunts monsters’ talk. He’d kept from thinking about what his dad would say to it all, because he couldn’t bear to even think about the disappointed look he knew would be on John Winchester’s face.

Sam spent those two weeks watching him like Dean was about to dye his hair blue, put on a pretty dress and dance around in clown shoes. His dad was gone most of those two weeks, but it took the older man less than a day to figure out something was wrong.

Dean dealt with it all by going to the nearest empty field and shooting targets until he couldn’t see straight.

But his mind was always racing with the possibilities that lay in front of him. He’d have to settle down and get a job, because you don’t raise a kid on scammed credit cards, and he couldn’t really see himself dragging Kelly and a baby all over the country as his family hunted ghosts and werewolves. Maybe later, but he wanted to give his kid a home, like the one he’d had before it burned to the ground.

Dean even let himself dream the impossible dream, of a life lived in one place, where the biggest worries were what to have for dinner and if the cable bill had been paid.

But two weeks later, the tests were back and Kelly wasn’t pregnant, and all the ideas and plans and dreams Dean had been indulging in came crashing down. He felt a strong surge of disappointment, followed closely by guilt. Nothing had changed; he still had a long life of roaming and hunting to look forward too, and that was a good thing. Or so he tried to tell himself.

There wasn’t much to say after that, and it was the death knell for his and Kelly’s time together. They parted as friends, but Dean knew he wouldn’t see her again.

But the memory of her stayed with him for years, along with a sense of regret at what might have been.

END


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